Don Pecha, Information Security at PayPal, Talks About the C|CISO Program

Moving from being a defacto network defender as a typical sys admin to Certified Ethical Hacker to security leadership was a transitional state for me over over a number of years. Going from defensive to offensive side of security was a natural progression in how I started to see security.

EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker taught me how to think like my adversaries. I learned the tools, techniques and mindset of an attacker. This allowed me to approach defensive hardening as more enlightened. This also opened the door to learn and grow as an offensive security engineer.

More recently I took EC-Council’s Certified CISO course to round out the executive mindset that I now need as a manager of security teams. C|CISO was one of the best courses I have taken and strengthened my views on what good leaders should be doing.

As I reflect on 2019, the CCISO executive course is still top of mind for how to be successful in the coming year. Earning certification in each of these gave me confidence with my experience and skills at those junctures in my career. For that, I am thankful.